Topic: Darwin Núñez (Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro)

[alonsoisared]

It's got nothing to do with underlying numbers
I literally wrote - if he plays the same number of minutes I'd be happy with the return because he's producing at a high rate - I do, however, want him to be more available .. you've turned this into 'per season' (and he's scored 18 goals this season btw) - that's why dilks posted what he did, you either didn't read or deliberately misconstrued my post

He can't be much more available though can he? He's been in 33 league squads this season. The only reason he's not got more game time is the occasional rotation, which is normal, and where the manager has preferred other options. Arsenal home and away for example, two of our most important games of the season, he wasn't trusted to start. To an extent there it's horses for courses but as you have rightly said previously, you want your key players playing much more minutes than our key players have done this season. Our key players start pretty much whenever they've been available- the goalie, Trent, Virgil, MacAllister, Salah, Robbo (although he's needed recovery time and been phased in) etc. Nunez is extremely available but isn't given the game time a key player would be afforded which is odd if his numbers are so elite.

A genuine question for you and the others who judge by statistics is how do you differentiate between the different levels players play at and styles of football at their respective clubs? I honestly don't know if there's some kind of metric. But surely in an elite attacking side, as we are, you're expecting higher than average returns as opposed to players lower down the table posting similar numbers. I don't think Isak is the answer (and I wouldn't sell Nunez either unless a ridiculous bid came in) but as he's been brought up a lot by both sides in this thread, is there not a decent argument that his numbers would likely rise if instead of playing for Eddie Howe he was playing for Klopp, and if he had the creativity of Salah around him. Taking someone like Raheem Sterling as an example, his attacking returns were elite at Man City where the team was set up for his success, but without any major injuries, loss of pace etc hes been shit for Chelsea and I dont think hed be much better for anyone else. Would stats have been able to predict that drop off? Another extreme example, Benteke signed for us as a goalscoring machine, fast, strong, direct, lethal in the box. He was a wrong fit stylistically, could stats have predicted that?

I maintain that, given his availability over the course of the season and the fact he is playing for an elite team under an elite manager, and we signed him as an elite goalscoring number 9, his actual numbers are rubbish. His underlying numbers might be great but they don't put points on the board or win us trophies. His all round game has improved from the clumsy nature of his game at the start of last season (although in his current poor form he seems to have regressed to that again) but in front of goal he's the exact same player he was- wasteful and unreliable. The only way he gets more minutes next season is if he performs better and his manager picks him more. Otherwise the end result is the same, 10/11/12 league goals for one of the most expensive number 9s in the sport. There have to be players out there who would outperform that easily in as good an attacking side as we are.

[Cpt_Reina]

What? Is it not worthy of discussion how teams with such an elite (expected) goalscorer aren't winning trophies?

Is 4 seasons at top clubs in their respective leagues not a large enough sample size?

We won two trophies and lost 2 finals the season before Darwin arrived and only managed 1 league cup win since he got here (a final he didn't play).

Benfica pretty much book end his arrival with league titles but nothing in his time there.

Just a curious trend in the data I thought.

[JackWard33]

Christ these ‘ways to prove Darwin is bad’ are getting more and more desperate
I guess it’s a sign the arguments been lost but it’s still painful to read

[killer-heels]

Saw a UEFA video of him scoring for Benfica and all the goals were real quality and composed finishes. He clearly has that in his locker, its just here where he panics.

[DelTrotter]

Christ these ‘ways to prove Darwin is bad’ are getting more and more desperate

Yeah this thread is fucking horrific, genuinely think a lot on here would prefer him to miss a sitter and us lose on the weekend than him to score 3 and us win. Though he'd be criticised either way of course "oh of course, this bum scores 3 now the pressure is off, just proves he's shit", "hahah can't even score in a meaningless game, he's shit" etc.

And he's apparently to blame for Henderson and Fabinho's legs going, the c*nt.

[spider-neil]

Saw a UEFA video of him scoring for Benfica and all the goals were real quality and composed finishes. He clearly has that in his locker, its just here where he panics.

He is also more composed at international level. His problems are in his head.
He's still young.
He is in the 90th percentile for pace.
He is strong.
He is good in the air.
He chases every lost cause.
He is a chance magnet.
He's relatively injury free.

He misses a ton of easy chances. You can coach that. Fuck it, get Robbie or Sturridge on the payroll to specifically improve his finishing.

[Mr Dilkington]

Christ these ‘ways to prove Darwin is bad’ are getting more and more desperate
I guess it’s a sign the arguments been lost but it’s still painful to read

'maybe I'm wrong' is the rarest sentence on the internet.

[Mr Dilkington]

What? Is it not worthy of discussion how teams with such an elite (expected) goalscorer aren't winning trophies?

Is 4 seasons at top clubs in their respective leagues not a large enough sample size?

We won two trophies and lost 2 finals the season before Darwin arrived and only managed 1 league cup win since he got here (a final he didn't play).

Benfica pretty much book end his arrival with league titles but nothing in his time there.

Just a curious trend in the data I thought.

It's so obvious by the tone of your posts that you're trolling and aren't actually interested in a good faith discussion.

[Buster Gonad]

What? Is it not worthy of discussion how teams with such an elite (expected) goalscorer aren't winning trophies?

Is 4 seasons at top clubs in their respective leagues not a large enough sample size?

We won two trophies and lost 2 finals the season before Darwin arrived and only managed 1 league cup win since he got here (a final he didn't play).

Benfica pretty much book end his arrival with league titles but nothing in his time there.

Just a curious trend in the data I thought.

So you wouldn't swap him for Harry Kane then?

No need to answer. We know you're trolling.

[Cpt_Reina]

Christ these ‘ways to prove Darwin is bad’ are getting more and more desperate
I guess it’s a sign the arguments been lost but it’s still painful to read

I didn't share anything that wasn't factual?

[Fiasco]

Saw a UEFA video of him scoring for Benfica and all the goals were real quality and composed finishes. He clearly has that in his locker, its just here where he panics.

I wonder how much of that is opposition as well. It would be fair to say I think that defenders are better in this league and he finds it harder to score against them than he did in Portugal. The goalkeepers are better too. Something the numbers don't cover or don't cover to reality and that gets lost on people.

He's probably more rushed over here, has less time on the whole and is up against better teams, better defenders and better goalkeepers. Football really is just that simple sometimes.

[JackWard33]

I didn't share anything that wasn't factual?

Literally everyone knows you're trolling
Do better .. or at least make it funny or something..

[Mr Dilkington]

I wonder how much of that is opposition as well. It would be fair to say I think that defenders are better in this league and he finds it harder to score against them than he did in Portugal. The goalkeepers are better too. Something the numbers don't cover or don't cover to reality and that gets lost on people.

He's probably more rushed over here, has less time on the whole and is up against better teams, better defenders and better goalkeepers. Football really is just that simple sometimes.

We've been through this.

His last season at Benfica he scored 6 goals in 7 matches against Neuer, Onana, Alisson and Ter Stegen.

[Fiasco]

We've been through this.

His last season at Benfica he scored 6 goals in 7 matches against Neuer, Onana, Alisson and Ter Stegen.

On the whole I said. Strikers are going to score past goalkeepers and defences. DCL scored past Alisson last week, he hasn't been able to hit a barn door since Ancelotti was there.

Over nearly 2 seasons he's been up against better defences, better teams and better goalkeepers most weeks. I'm not sure that is up for debate unless you think the Portuguese league is closer in quality to the football here than it really is.

[jepovic]

I wonder how much of that is opposition as well. It would be fair to say I think that defenders are better in this league and he finds it harder to score against them than he did in Portugal. The goalkeepers are better too. Something the numbers don't cover or don't cover to reality and that gets lost on people.

He's probably more rushed over here, has less time on the whole and is up against better teams, better defenders and better goalkeepers. Football really is just that simple sometimes.

Which is why we should sell him and buy Gyökeres instead 

[Mr Dilkington]

On the whole I said. Strikers are going to score past goalkeepers and defences. DCL scored past Alisson last week, he hasn't been able to hit a barn door since Ancelotti was there.

Over nearly 2 seasons he's been up against better defences, better teams and better goalkeepers most weeks. I'm not sure that is up for debate unless you think the Portuguese league is closer in quality to the football here than it really is.

This was in the Champions League though? So he was good enough to score against Barcelona and Ter Stegen, Alisson and Liverpool, Neuer and Bayern but the sheer quality of Areola, Verbruggen, Dean Henderson and Jose Sa is too much for him?

We've established that he has been able to get high value chances at every level he's played, the debate is around his finishing ability. What I'm saying is if he has shown he can score against Neuer, Alisson, Onana and Ter Stegen, why would he not be able to do it against Premier League goalkeepers?

[Scottymuser]

So you'd give another season (25/26) based on his actual numbers and not underlying? So you're happy with 18 goals, 11 in the prem? That was my question. Yes with the same minutes played.

Maybe the misunderstanding was that I literally assumed you wouldn't be happy with these numbers alone but with those + the same promising underlying numbers together. Now you tell me its nothing to do with them. Fine.

You consider it a high rate of return. Others would consider it not good enough. I was merely trying to understand where you stood and why.

Again, you are ignoring the most important stat, looking at those goals in the context of how many minutes he played (and therefore coming up with a Mins per non-Pen Goal, and per involvement).  Doing that, as I explained yesterday, leaves him in good stead - goal every 185 mins, goal involvement every 105.  And thats with this month of 5 games *ruining* his stats - before these 5 games, he was on a goal every 158 mins, and a goal involvement every 97.  Thats *great* - across 2700 mins (80% of mins, which you would usually have a striker play) that would be 17 goals and 11 assists - NOT 11.

Quick question - do you think Owen (for us) was a world class striker?  As he never got less than a (non-pen) goal or assist every 111 mins (i.e. Nunezs numbers are already better than Owen at his peak for actual production); and 4 of his 7 full seasons with us he had a non-pen Goal of every 167 mins or worse (i.e. worse than Nunez was at before the United game on the 7th). 

[Eeyore]

On the whole I said. Strikers are going to score past goalkeepers and defences. DCL scored past Alisson last week, he hasn't been able to hit a barn door since Ancelotti was there.

Over nearly 2 seasons he's been up against better defences, better teams and better goalkeepers most weeks. I'm not sure that is up for debate unless you think the Portuguese league is closer in quality to the football here than it really is.

So you are comparing him to Suarez who scored 49 in 48 for Ajax. Took a while to adjust to the Premier League in a team that was set up to play to Carroll's strengths. Whilst that was happening he continued his good form for his Country. At the start of his Liverpool career, he was taking 15 shots to score a goal. Spookilly his first couple of seasons resembled his own version of the wood work challenge.

Suarez matured and improved his finishing dramatically as the team was built around him. He then changed from a player who was being described as a poor finisher to someone who tore up the Premier League and La Liga.

Is that what you mean?

[Knight]

There’s no point lads. People have decided that a forward is only good enough for us if he scores 20 league goals (note how many posters refer to this number) so no amount of patient explanation that his numbers are already really good is going to actually help.

[paddysour]

What? Is it not worthy of discussion how teams with such an elite (expected) goalscorer aren't winning trophies?

Is 4 seasons at top clubs in their respective leagues not a large enough sample size?

We won two trophies and lost 2 finals the season before Darwin arrived and only managed 1 league cup win since he got here (a final he didn't play).

Benfica pretty much book end his arrival with league titles but nothing in his time there.

Just a curious trend in the data I thought.

You're getting stick for this but it is worthy of discussion I think.

The Nunez discussions are basically around what we can measure. No doubt about it, he puts up elite 'expected' numbers. I've said it before on here that some year he's going to have everything fall right for him and score an absolute boatload. Call it regression to the mean, the law of averages, or whatever you want - it probably will happen.

But there are things you can't measure. I think of it as opportunity cost - what are we giving up for Nunez to hit these numbers? It goes back to the idea of players being 'multipliers' - the best teams are greater than the sum of their parts. When you look at our title winning or CL winning teams, and see guys like Gini or Henderson - they didn't look great on paper. But we played better with them in the team right? They added things that you can't really measure. We could have replaced Gini with a player who puts up great attacking numbers, but if the team lost it's solidity and ball retention, would it be an upgrade or downgrade?

So I look at Nunez now, and try to imagine he matched his xG this season. Undoubtedly we'd have done better, because we scored more goals. But is he being a multiplier? When he's offside so often, slows the play down with bad touches, and under-hits passes. There isn't a stat out there we can use to measure if the team would have performed better.

If I imagine a Nunez who scores, vs peak Firmino for example, which team do I think performs better? On paper Nunez is beating Firmino every day of the week. But going back to the opportunity cost - he's detrimental to the rest of our build up play. And that has a knock on effect for the defence too - the opponents get to reset with the offsides, and the get to counter more often with the misplays.

So going back to your original point around team performance - it's a perfectly valid question to ask. Benfica might have downgraded individually, while having a multiplier effect on the team as a whole that allows them to compete better.

[JackWard33]

So I look at Nunez now, and try to imagine he matched his xG this season. Undoubtedly we'd have done better, because we scored more goals. But is he being a multiplier?

We've got the highest xg in the league by a distance.
Not sure how much of a multiplier you're after... or whether you want to argue he's not responsible for that.. or without him we'd be 20% better than Arsenal and City instead of 10%
Or if we can just stop this stupid shit of massively over personalising team performance

Also.. you've fed the troll ....

[rob1966]

Saw a UEFA video of him scoring for Benfica and all the goals were real quality and composed finishes. He clearly has that in his locker, its just here where he panics.

Its going to be the pressure of playing in such a close league. As Al I think it was said, as he matures (and 24 is NOT mature for most blokes) he'll get more composed.

I'd like to see someone like Sturridge work with him, he talks so well and gets his points across, he had that composure and I'm sure he could help him in this league and to understand that sometimes he has the time to have a think.

[paddysour]

We've got the highest xg in the league by a distance.
Not sure how much of a multiplier you're after... or whether you want to argue he's not responsible for that.. or without him we'd be 20% better than Arsenal and City instead of 10%
Or if we can just stop this stupid shit of massively over personalising team performance

Also.. you've fed the troll ....

What did that get us?

I don't think it's "stupid shit" to try and think of the team as a whole when discussing a player. Undoubtedly it's not all Nunez's fault (honestly I think Diaz almost as bad). But we are in the Nunez thread.

And to be honest, your response here is more trolly than anything I've seen from the poster I quoted. I'm trying to have a genuine discussion and think a little deeper than just numbers, but you're trying to shut it down with comments like "stupid shit".

[Knight]

What did that get us?

I don't think it's "stupid shit" to try and think of the team as a whole when discussing a player. Undoubtedly it's not all Nunez's fault (honestly I think Diaz almost as bad). But we are in the Nunez thread.

And to be honest, your response here is more trolly than anything I've seen from the poster I quoted. I'm trying to have a genuine discussion and think a little deeper than just numbers, but you're trying to shut it down with comments like "stupid shit".

Your original post fails on the eye test. For the vast majority of the season we’ve looked much better with Núñez in the team. It fails on the stats test too. The post I’ve quoted fails to recognise how big a problem our defence has been to our hopes of getting 90+ points. Game state is a huge deal and when we were hitting high 90 points totals we were the master of it. But now we’re going behind in game after game after game. It’s just not sustainable. Nor is conceding multiple goals in tricky away fixtures and expecting to win games. In short out attack simply wasn’t the problem.

[JackWard33]

What did that get us?

I don't think it's "stupid shit" to try and think of the team as a whole when discussing a player. Undoubtedly it's not all Nunez's fault (honestly I think Diaz almost as bad). But we are in the Nunez thread.

And to be honest, your response here is more trolly than anything I've seen from the poster I quoted. I'm trying to have a genuine discussion and think a little deeper than just numbers, but you're trying to shut it down with comments like "stupid shit".

I mean by demonstration I don’t have the power to shut anything down … this thread should’ve reached unanimous agreement Nunez is a really good forward and not a particularly interesting part of our team 3 weeks ago but here we are

Looking at the best attacking team in the league and concluding our 9 is a problem is a massive reach and very hard to justify because you’re trying to fix a problem that you haven’t shown exists

[JasonF]

You're getting stick for this but it is worthy of discussion I think.

The Nunez discussions are basically around what we can measure. No doubt about it, he puts up elite 'expected' numbers. I've said it before on here that some year he's going to have everything fall right for him and score an absolute boatload. Call it regression to the mean, the law of averages, or whatever you want - it probably will happen.

But there are things you can't measure. I think of it as opportunity cost - what are we giving up for Nunez to hit these numbers? It goes back to the idea of players being 'multipliers' - the best teams are greater than the sum of their parts. When you look at our title winning or CL winning teams, and see guys like Gini or Henderson - they didn't look great on paper. But we played better with them in the team right? They added things that you can't really measure. We could have replaced Gini with a player who puts up great attacking numbers, but if the team lost it's solidity and ball retention, would it be an upgrade or downgrade?

So I look at Nunez now, and try to imagine he matched his xG this season. Undoubtedly we'd have done better, because we scored more goals. But is he being a multiplier? When he's offside so often, slows the play down with bad touches, and under-hits passes. There isn't a stat out there we can use to measure if the team would have performed better.

If I imagine a Nunez who scores, vs peak Firmino for example, which team do I think performs better? On paper Nunez is beating Firmino every day of the week. But going back to the opportunity cost - he's detrimental to the rest of our build up play. And that has a knock on effect for the defence too - the opponents get to reset with the offsides, and the get to counter more often with the misplays.

So going back to your original point around team performance - it's a perfectly valid question to ask. Benfica might have downgraded individually, while having a multiplier effect on the team as a whole that allows them to compete better.

This is from Andrew Beasley a few months ago:

Considering Liverpool earned their fewest points since 2015/16 in Nunez’ first season with the club, suggesting he makes them a better team might feel like a bit of a stretch. A player can only affect results when they are on the pitch, though, and looking at when the former Benfica man has played tells a different story.

With Nunez present in all competitions, the Reds have scored 118 goals and conceded 53, meaning his individual goal difference works out at +1.33 per 90 minutes. This is 0.72 better than it has been for the Reds when he has been on the bench or in the stands.

This is the biggest difference between with-and-without for any of the 34 Liverpool players who’ve amassed at least 2,000 minutes since the start of 2017/18. We could break down the underlying xG numbers but they tell the same tale, with Nunez top again.

BUT THE REAL DIFFERENCE COMES WITH THE BIG CHANCES CATEGORY, EVEN IF NUNEZ IS HUGELY WASTEFUL WITH THEM HIMSELF.

Since the start of last season, Liverpool have averaged 2.5 per 90 minutes without the Uruguayan but 3.6 when he plays. Using Nunez turns the Reds from a very good attacking team into an elite one that will expect to net a few against Burnley on Saturday at Anfield.

[Fiasco]

So you are comparing him to Suarez who scored 49 in 48 for Ajax. Took a while to adjust to the Premier League in a team that was set up to play to Carroll's strengths. Whilst that was happening he continued his good form for his Country. At the start of his Liverpool career, he was taking 15 shots to score a goal. Spookilly his first couple of seasons resembled his own version of the wood work challenge.

Suarez matured and improved his finishing dramatically as the team was built around him. He then changed from a player who was being described as a poor finisher to someone who tore up the Premier League and La Liga.

Is that what you mean?

Just because it happened with Suarez doesn't mean it will happen with Nunez. I don't see the correlation other than.. nationality and hope. There is no basis that because one player had a certain trajectory that another player will have that same trajectory. There is very little behind it other than the parallels of having 2 players who are/were a bit erratic at the same age both from Uruguay hoping to make the step up at Liverpool.

If you're going to stick to your comparisons why don't you say that once Nunez hits a certain ceiling here, he'll then go on to be one of the best players of his generation. Because that is what Suarez was. Hell, some people think he's our best ever player in terms of sheer talent. Do you think that Nunez is capable of ever being that good?


And as for scoring against certain goalkeepers and defenders I find it mad that the idea of him playing against better players, defenders and goalkeepers most weeks in comparison to what he's been used to hasn't played a part. Yeah, he's scored against Alisson, Neuer etc but you can also argue he's scored a lot in the Europa League against goalkeepers you wouldn't be able to name or recognise in the street. As I said, DCL scored against Alisson last week, does that make him great? Goals in a few games against top goalkeepers is never a bad thing but you have to look at the bigger picture and see who he plays against most weeks. He blasted the ball at Jordan Pickford from 8 yards out last week with most of the goal to aim at. The fact that he scored against Alisson in the CL 2 or 3 years ago doesn't really matter as much to me as opposed to what he's producing now.


League 1 and 2 players have scored against Alisson in the cups. I bet players 70 places below Buffon in Italy scored against him in the odd cup game or friendly. It happens. He hasn't scored against any top goalkeepers this season has he? But because he scored against Neuer 3 years ago that means everything is alright.

[rob1966]

Your original post fails on the eye test. For the vast majority of the season we’ve looked much better with Núñez in the team. It fails on the stats test too. The post I’ve quoted fails to recognise how big a problem our defence has been to our hopes of getting 90+ points. Game state is a huge deal and when we were hitting high 90 points totals we were the master of it. But now we’re going behind in game after game after game. It’s just not sustainable. Nor is conceding multiple goals in tricky away fixtures and expecting to win games. In short out attack simply wasn’t the problem.

That is a massive point and issue. The forwards know that no matter the opposition, they are going to have to score at least two to win the game. Against teams like ADFC or Arsenal, you expect to concede, but you don't expect to almost be 1 down to Sheff Utd after 34 seconds, nor go behind to them, be 1 down to an off form Brighton within 5 minutes at Anfield, nor all the other games we've conceded in first. Its all just added unwanted pressure

[spider-neil]

Your original post fails on the eye test. For the vast majority of the season we’ve looked much better with Núñez in the team. It fails on the stats test too. The post I’ve quoted fails to recognise how big a problem our defence has been to our hopes of getting 90+ points. Game state is a huge deal and when we were hitting high 90 points totals we were the master of it. But now we’re going behind in game after game after game. It’s just not sustainable. Nor is conceding multiple goals in tricky away fixtures and expecting to win games. In short out attack simply wasn’t the problem.

I'm going to disagree with you there. The attack has been a problem for our defense because we simply have been good enough at preventing the opposition playing out the back. Once the opposition have broken that initial press gaps open up all over the pitch making it harder for the midfield to close those gaps which has resulted in our defence being exposed.

Attack to defence its all connected with regard to making yourself harder to break down.

[paddysour]

Your original post fails on the eye test. For the vast majority of the season we’ve looked much better with Núñez in the team. It fails on the stats test too. The post I’ve quoted fails to recognise how big a problem our defence has been to our hopes of getting 90+ points. Game state is a huge deal and when we were hitting high 90 points totals we were the master of it. But now we’re going behind in game after game after game. It’s just not sustainable. Nor is conceding multiple goals in tricky away fixtures and expecting to win games. In short out attack simply wasn’t the problem.

This is part of the stuff we can't measure. If Nunez and co stopped turning the ball over so much, would our defence be better? We have empirical evidence that Alisson, Trent, VVD, Gomez, Robertson can be an elite defence.

Obviously there's other issues there like the midfielders and injuries. But this is essentially what I'm saying - we need to judge the team has a whole sum. Not just individual xG. We know our defence and goalkeeper can be part of an elite defence.

There is no stat we can use to measure this. But if our forwards never ever turned the ball over, you can imagine we'd be better defensively, because the opposition would have less opportunity to break on us. So we can work backwards from that impossible scenario and have a discussion around the team issues. So back to the opportunity cost point, does Nunez gain us or lose us versus someone like Firmino? Individually Nunez wins that battle. But the team might be stronger without him. For the record I don't think we have this theoretical player on our books, so it's impossible for us to judge this with stats. We're comparing the actual, versus a theory.

I fall on the side of the theory here. I think we could be a better team without Nunez, even if the replacement is an individually worse player. I could be wrong, but it doesn't mean it's "stupid shit".

[Eeyore]

Just because it happened with Suarez doesn't mean it will happen with Nunez. I don't see the correlation other than.. nationality and hope. There is no basis that because one player had a certain trajectory that another player will have that same trajectory. There is very little behind it other than the parallels of having 2 players who are/were a bit erratic at the same age both from Uruguay hoping to make the step up at Liverpool.

The biggest correlation for me is both players have hit the woodwork a completely abnormal number of times during the periods they were finding it difficult to score. I mean look at the Chelsea game. Since records bean in 2003 there have only been three instances of a player hitting the woodwork. Nunez managed it 4 times in one game. Two of them were pushed onto the woodwork by the keeper. I mean for a player with a 12 from 12 penalty record even hitting the post from the spot was an anomaly.

If you're going to stick to your comparisons why don't you say that once Nunez hits a certain ceiling here, he'll then go on to be one of the best players of his generation. Because that is what Suarez was. Hell, some people think he's our best ever player in terms of sheer talent. Do you think that Nunez is capable of ever being that good?

Who knows whether Nunez will fulfill his potential here. The underlying numbers suggest he has every chance.

As for talent. Ben Foster asked Milner about Nunez. “I did an interview actually with James Milner about six months ago,” began the former England international.

“I said which player in the Liverpool squad do you get most excited by, has got the most raw talent? And he said without a doubt it’s Darwin Nunez. He said ‘it’s just like we’re wating for something to click, but when it clicks, wow, he’s going to be a beast’.”

And as for scoring against certain goalkeepers and defenders I find it mad that the idea of him playing against better players, defenders and goalkeepers most weeks in comparison to what he's been used to hasn't played a part. Yeah, he's scored against Alisson, Neuer etc but you can also argue he's scored a lot in the Europa League against goalkeepers you wouldn't be able to name or recognise in the street. As I said, DCL scored against Alisson last week, does that make him great? Goals in a few games against top goalkeepers is never a bad thing but you have to look at the bigger picture and see who he plays against most weeks. He blasted the ball at Jordan Pickford from 8 yards out last week with most of the goal to aim at. The fact that he scored against Alisson in the CL 2 or 3 years ago doesn't really matter as much to me as opposed to what he's producing now.


League 1 and 2 players have scored against Alisson in the cups. I bet players 70 places below Buffon in Italy scored against him in the odd cup game or friendly. It happens. He hasn't scored against any top goalkeepers this season has he? But because he scored against Neuer 3 years ago that means everything is alright.

What you are missing though is that the final pass should also be better from his teammates. We should be putting better crosses into the box. Unfortunately for Nunez his arrival has seen us change the way we attack. Trent now inverts and Robbo doesn't get forward as much. Ironically we used to be guilty of putting in too many crosses. That is something that would have suited Nunez. Look how many times Trent used whip crosses in really early for our forwards. Now we look to walk the ball in or create shooting opportunities for the likes of Trent, Szobo and Macca in central areas.

[Fiasco]

What you are missing though is that the final pass should also be better from his teammates. We should be putting better crosses into the box. Unfortunately for Nunez his arrival has seen us change the way we attack. Trent now inverts and Robbo doesn't get forward as much. Ironically we used to be guilty of putting in too many crosses. That is something that would have suited Nunez. Look how many times Trent used whip crosses in really early for our forwards. Now we look to walk the ball in or create shooting opportunities for the likes of Trent, Szobo and Macca in central areas.

No doubt we set up differently now but the chances he's missed can't be explained by poor final passes. I'm not having that. He's had many chances put on a plate for him and not scored so I just can't buy that he's hard done to in terms of final balls not being good enough.

We have missed Trent when he's not been available this season, and yes Robertson perhaps isn't what he was but I think we're really going deep to excuse the shortcomings in Nunez' game here and I'm not sure who that benefits really. I don't want him to leave, I just think he absolutely has to turn the corner for good and he's not a guaranteed starter for me, especially so depending on what business we do in the summer up top.

[spider-neil]

Also, with regards to Nunez being offside, a large part of that is the midfielders holding onto the ball too long.

[rob1966]

Also, with regards to Nunez being offside, a large part of that is the midfielders holding onto the ball too long.

I've seen him getting frustrated with them - also saw him having an argument with Jurgen on the halfway line, might have been Villa at home, where he jogged over to Jurgen as Jurgen had shouted at him and he was gesturing that he had acres of space on the left and the ball wasn't released early enough.

You could argue he should check his run, but by doing that the advantage is lost, release half a second earlier and he's away and not getting caught

[spider-neil]

I've seen him getting frustrated with them - also saw him having an argument with Jurgen on the halfway line, might have been Villa at home, where he jogged over to Jurgen as Jurgen had shouted at him and he was gesturing that he had acres of space on the left and the ball wasn't released early enough.

You could argue he should check his run, but by doing that the advantage is lost, release half a second earlier and he's away and not getting caught

I feel confident that the three behind the main striker will be instructed to play the ball in behind faster whether they see the striker making the run or not.

[Bread]

Also, with regards to Nunez being offside, a large part of that is the midfielders holding onto the ball too long.

I agree with this. I'd personally attribute at least half of his offsides as being the fault of the passer not releasing it quickly enough. I'd also attribute a fair chunk of his offsides and actually being onside, with the linesman raising his flag incorrectly.

[Bastion Of Invincibility]

You're getting stick for this but it is worthy of discussion I think.

The Nunez discussions are basically around what we can measure. No doubt about it, he puts up elite 'expected' numbers. I've said it before on here that some year he's going to have everything fall right for him and score an absolute boatload. Call it regression to the mean, the law of averages, or whatever you want - it probably will happen.

But there are things you can't measure. I think of it as opportunity cost - what are we giving up for Nunez to hit these numbers? It goes back to the idea of players being 'multipliers' - the best teams are greater than the sum of their parts. When you look at our title winning or CL winning teams, and see guys like Gini or Henderson - they didn't look great on paper. But we played better with them in the team right? They added things that you can't really measure. We could have replaced Gini with a player who puts up great attacking numbers, but if the team lost it's solidity and ball retention, would it be an upgrade or downgrade?

So I look at Nunez now, and try to imagine he matched his xG this season. Undoubtedly we'd have done better, because we scored more goals. But is he being a multiplier? When he's offside so often, slows the play down with bad touches, and under-hits passes. There isn't a stat out there we can use to measure if the team would have performed better.

If I imagine a Nunez who scores, vs peak Firmino for example, which team do I think performs better? On paper Nunez is beating Firmino every day of the week. But going back to the opportunity cost - he's detrimental to the rest of our build up play. And that has a knock on effect for the defence too - the opponents get to reset with the offsides, and the get to counter more often with the misplays.

So going back to your original point around team performance - it's a perfectly valid question to ask. Benfica might have downgraded individually, while having a multiplier effect on the team as a whole that allows them to compete better.

I've read the last 50 or so pages of this thread and this was the best post.

[Agent99]

Suarez matured and improved his finishing dramatically as the team was built around him. He then changed from a player who was being described as a poor finisher to someone who tore up the Premier League and La Liga.

Is that what you mean?

What are you talking about? You keep bringing up Suarez like he was a bum before he came to us. He's always been an elite finisher. If anything the first couple of seasons with us were the anomaly. Shit ton of class, composed, technical finishes right here.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/hpb-7HfkJ0o?si=2wRM8adZOZi5XRej" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/hpb-7HfkJ0o?si=2wRM8adZOZi5XRej</a>

[CowboyKangaroo]

A genuine question for you and the others who judge by statistics is how do you differentiate between the different levels players play at and styles of football at their respective clubs? I honestly don't know if there's some kind of metric. But surely in an elite attacking side, as we are, you're expecting higher than average returns as opposed to players lower down the table posting similar numbers. I don't think Isak is the answer (and I wouldn't sell Nunez either unless a ridiculous bid came in) but as he's been brought up a lot by both sides in this thread, is there not a decent argument that his numbers would likely rise if instead of playing for Eddie Howe he was playing for Klopp, and if he had the creativity of Salah around him. Taking someone like Raheem Sterling as an example, his attacking returns were elite at Man City where the team was set up for his success, but without any major injuries, loss of pace etc hes been shit for Chelsea and I dont think hed be much better for anyone else. Would stats have been able to predict that drop off? Another extreme example, Benteke signed for us as a goalscoring machine, fast, strong, direct, lethal in the box. He was a wrong fit stylistically, could stats have predicted that?

This feels good faith, so I'll have a go at answering.

Benteke: Yes, most statistical analysis showed that his level had seriously dropped after injury. In terms of output, he actually improved after moving to Liverpool, but it was insufficient.

Sterling: Probably not, if you were treating Chelsea as a champions league team. If you were treating them as a mid-table team, then yeah, there is good evidence to suggest that team effects constrain attacking output in worse teams. His output had been steadily declining year on year before the move, but it was somewhat unexpected how much it declined after the move.

Thing is, this isn't really relevant, as Nunez's numbers are good per time spent on the pitch. Its not really disputable. Both his underlying are and actual goals + assists per 90 is very very good.

I wonder how much of that is opposition as well. It would be fair to say I think that defenders are better in this league and he finds it harder to score against them than he did in Portugal. The goalkeepers are better too. Something the numbers don't cover or don't cover to reality and that gets lost on people.

He's probably more rushed over here, has less time on the whole and is up against better teams, better defenders and better goalkeepers. Football really is just that simple sometimes.

There isn't any evidence which suggests that players are more likely to over-perform their xG in weaker leagues (again, this is because finishing as a skill isn't very important in being a good goal-scorer). You are absolutely right that moving to a stronger league usually results in a player's underlying numbers diminishing, and consequentially, their output - and this is one of the reasons I would have been cautious about Nunez before we signed him. However, Nunez's underlying numbers haven't fallen. They've remained the same.

[mullyred94]

Now get back to your question. Let's take a look at the detailed attacking stats of the two players.

Diaz leads Nunez in the following categories:

	Diaz	Nunez	Diaz per90	Nunez per90
Key passes	56	33	2.09	1.49
Passes into final third	60	21	2.24	0.95
Passes into pen area	42	26	1.57	1.17
Progressive passess	109	53	4.07	2.39
Take-ons	128	43	4.78	1.94
Progressive carries	123	55	4.59	2.48
Carries into final third	69	34	2.57	1.53
Carries into pen area	62	34	2.31	1.53
Shot creating actions	150	79	5.6	3.56

And Nunez leads Diaz in these:

	Diaz	Nunez	Diaz per90	Nunez per90
Assists	5	8	0.19	0.36
xA	4.4	4.4	0.16	0.2
xAG	5.1	6	0.19	0.27
GCA	9	14	0.34	0.63

You can clearly see Diaz is far ahead of Nunez in every attacking metric related to chance creation, but Nunez is ahead in the end products (A, GCA) yet his xA/xAG is only slightly ahead. Yet a player can only control his chance creation and xA stats. The actual products also depend on the finishers. So maybe Diaz having high SCA but low GCA is a case of the shooters not converting his SCAs? Hmm, so who among our finishers wasted the most chances?

Besides, if you look at the sample sizes of the stats in the first table and the second, you can clearly see the ones in second are more subject to variations. In other words, if Diaz gets 2 assists in the next games, they'd look pretty even. But it would take a long time for Nunez to match Diaz's numbers in the first table.

There also may be a couple of reasons to explain this mismatch. One could be that SCA and GCA are not necessarily always correlated. Look no further than Diaz's numbers in his two previous seasons for us. In his first season, his SCA and GCA are almost identical to this season. But in his second one, his SCA is much lower yet his GCA is almost twice higher than those of this season - which is what's happening to Nunez now.

Okay that is a fair enough response but the question still boils down to who's more effective in terms of output which was my main point which you previously did agree with.

Is it a case of Nunez wasting all the chances but the xA is only 5 and Nunez has only performed under his xG by 4 while Diaz & Salah are also underperforming xG?

So what is more important xA and xG or SCA and big chances missed?